Funeral Pyre
by swiftwings13
Summary: Hawke has trouble dealing with loss and nearly burns down her home.


Erin Hawke stared into the fire and wondered what it felt like to burn. Andraste had died a martyr, cruelly betrayed by her husband to the stake, but Erin wondered if Andraste had been relieved when fire began to lick at her legs. Hawke watched the fire, imagining it growing and leaping up Andraste's funeral pyre, her voice singing out in delicious screams as she was at last freed from the pain of life.

Anders paused to look at the wares of the Hightown merchants. He wasn't sure how to help Hawke accept her mother's death. The wound that plagued Hawke now was nothing he could heal with magic and he couldn't even begin to know how he could help her. The healer shook his head and moved on through the crowded market. A gift from these stores was much too expensive for him and he wasn't sure how appropriate a necklace commemorating her mother's death was ….

"FIRE! FIRE!" A dwarf pushed through the crowd stumbling up to a guardsman and pointing breathlessly towards the square beyond the marketplace.

Anders watched curiously, he knew that dwarf, didn't he? Maker why did all dwarves look alike? Those great big bushy beards hid any uniqueness from the untrained human eye. Thankfully Varric shaved.

The crowd began to gasp and shouts rang out as smoke billowed above the rooftops.

"Look! Over there, smoke!" someone cried.

"Twill catch fire to the other manors! Call the guards!"

A slight, blonde elf girl made her way to the violently gesticulating dwarf. "Bodahn, Mistress Hawke is not in the marketplace. I fear she may be in the house!"

Anders spun before he could see the tears spill over the elven girl's cheeks. _Hawke._

"Hawke? Why didn't ye say before?!"the guardsman was yelling, "Yeats! Go to the Gallows we'll need mages before this is done."

The Hawke Estate was very nearly engulfed in flames when Anders arrived. His heart sank, she was in that?

_ She is lost. She surrendered to the demons. Her punishment is fitting. _

A growl stirred in his throat. _I will not surrender her to them._ Anders replied angrily to the spirit. Gathering his mana, Anders envisioned a shield around himself strong enough to keep out the fire and heat and smoke. It came up, surrounding him with a cocoon of shimmering air and then faltered.

_If you don't help me Justice, I will die. _Anders marched towards the door. A force spell sprang from his palm stronger than necessary, smashing the door into splinters rather than his intention to merely knock it down. The mage's mouth twitched, Justice had been persuaded it seemed.

"Hawke!"

Erin Hawke did not move to answer the voice. She stared at the fire, consumed by the vision she saw there.

Anders swallowed; her room was swathed in flames. They ate away at her writing desk; the pages of her journal crinkled and shrank. Only a small area around Hawke remained untouched.

"Hawke!" he called again, moving slowly toward her through the flames. A shadow twitched behind her. Eyes of shadows and rust glared at Anders from the fire that ate at Hawke's bed.

"Go." Her mouth moved but the sound came from the monster in the fire.

"Erin," Anders breathed, his voice filling with emotion. A demon had come to her just as Justice had said. "_Erin_." He allowed his voice to lower to a whisper hardly heard over the crackling of the funeral pyre that surrounded them. He let every emotion flow into her name, whispering it over and over like an incantation.

"Go away!" the demon roared. Hawke's face twisted rage and grief.

Anders winced reflexively as the fire popped sending up a spray of sparks that skittered harmlessly around his shield. Ice was forming at his finger tips; his only hope of reaching her was to destroy the demon.

"Erin this is not how Leandra would want you to honor her!" Anders called to her. He hoped that her mother's name would awaken her to the demon's influence. If it didn't, he had a fistful of ice and one chance to end this before the mages and templars arrived.

"She deserved a funeral pyre like no others'!" this time the demon spoke without Hawke.

Anders waited, tense, he wanted Erin to break from the demon herself. He ignored Justice's impatient murmurings in the back of his head. A pulse shook the room followed by another and another. With each pulse Anders was sent stumbling back a step until he was holding onto the door frame to keep himself inside the room.

A change had come over Erin, her eyes were closed and with each pulse the fireless region that encompassed her grew. Her voice was nearly drowned out by the rage demons taunts and screams.

"She blamed you for her death! Carver blames you! You should have done more!" it screamed, magma spilling frothing from its mouth.

Erin stood, a stronger pulse echoing out from her. Anders felt the pulse slip through his shield; she was so much stronger than he thought.

"My mother deserved life." With her words a final pulse pushed through the mansion. Fire wilted, paper unfolded as the damage from the fire was reversed.

Erin Hawke opened her eyes and felt the cool touch of her father's hand leave her shoulder. Her eyes welled with tears and she turned quickly hoping to catch one last glimpse of her father before his spirit retreated into the fade.

_"They need you, my daughter."_ Her father's voice echoed softly in her ear.

Hawke closed her eyes, her breath caught somewhere between her lungs and her heart, and imagined that she could still feel the weight of his hand on her shoulder. Then another voice, tense and thick with worry shattered the illusion.

"Hawke?" It was Anders.

Hawke did not turn to face him as she spoke. "I was attacked by a blood mage." Her voice strong and cold in the absence of the rage she had felt moments before. She didn't need to see Anders to know the look of confusion that he was giving her and then the understanding that would follow. The disappointment, the sadness, the anger. "You felt saw him flee out the window just as you entered the room, didn't you" With careful deliberate steps, Hawke approached her window and unleashed a blast of mana. "But we couldn't chase him. We had to fight the rage demon he had summoned. We were lucky enough that we weren't burned, weren't we?"

"Very lucky." Anders agreed his voice was strained with the effort of restraining Justice. He did not seem to appreciate Hawke's version of events.

"Hawke!" a voice echoed up the stairs. "Hawke are you alright?"

"Up here Cullen! The threat has been dealt with!" Hawke answered the templar's call and at last turned so that she faced Anders and the doorway to her bedchamber. "We're fine!" Her bright blue eyes locked gazes with Anders betraying Hawke's outward calm with a simple truth. She would never be fine.


End file.
